Monday, November 13, 2006

Salary Survey 2006: Hot Skills, Hot Pay

Job hopping, a career strategy that tumbled with the dot-com bust, is showing signs of a comeback.

Matthew Castillo, a Web developer and administrator at the University of Houston, has already seen private-sector companies poach employees with Web skills from his staff. The 12-person Web technologies group has lost two people

“just because they can make more elsewhere,”

Castillo says. “Especially in a state institution where salaries are fixed, it’s hard for us to compete.”

Foote calls it a battle for specialized skills.

“There have always been talent wars in specific jobs. That has never changed. The difference today is it’s now down to this niche level,” Foote says.

For these in-demand skills, companies are willing to pay “skills premiums” in the form of signing bonuses or retention bonuses.

Computerworld’s Salary Survey and other studies point to a firming labor market. Some 41% of IT executives who responded to Computerworld’s second-quarter Vital Signs Survey said they found it more difficult to recruit key IT talent than they did at the same time last year. Sixteen percent of the respondents to this year’s Salary Survey said they expect to be in a similar job but at a different company within the next five years, and nearly half (47%) reported that they’re actively or passively looking for another job.